7 Kindle battery secrets that keep my device powered for months

Turn down your brightness

Less light, more life

Higher brightness means your front-light LEDs run at full intensity, which consumes more energy. Warmth adds amber LEDs on top of the white ones, so a warmer screen quite literally uses more lights. To conserve power, turn off auto-brightness and manually set a comfortable level based on your environment. Reading at full blast isn't great for your eyes anyway.

You can turn down your brightness after you open a book > tap the top of your screen > tap the stop-light menu in the upper-right > select Settings > choose Screen and Brightness > Brightness and warmth. Turn brightness and warmth all the way down, and even set a warmth schedule for nighttime.

Turn on Airplane Mode

Whenever you can

One of the biggest power thieves on your Kindle is Wi-Fi connectivity, hands down. When your device is connected to the internet, it's consistently checking for syncs, downloads, recommendations, and more. It's also specifically checking Amazon's servers for new ads and WhisperSyncs, which automatically let you switch between e-books and audiobooks without losing your place in a story. Turning on Airplane mode disables those checks and preserves the battery that would be drained from them. Don't worry -- as long as you read predominantly on your e-book and aren't switching devices too often, you won't lose your place -- progress is stored locally.

I always have Airplane Mode on, actually. I don't love letting my device be a constant walking advertisement. Also, your Kindle does need occasional software updates. If you let these download automatically, your device may connect to Wi-Fi at night to look for or install them. If you're really trying to preserve battery, keep Airplane Mode on until you're ready for the latest version. There is no way to disable automatic software updates on your Kindle Paperwhite (2024).

To turn on Airplane mode, open a book > tap the top of your screen > tap the stop-light menu in the upper-right > select Settings > choose Wi-Fi and Bluetooth > Toggle Airplane Mode on. You can also swipe down from the top of your screen for a quick access menu.

Turn off animated pages

Less animation = less power

Don't get me wrong -- I love a little E Ink animation. It makes my e-reader feel even more magical than it already does. But animated transitions require more juice. They include multiple rapid screen refreshes to create the effect rather than a single static one.

Turning off these animations reduces refresh frequency and general CPU activity on your Kindle.

When you turn off these animations, it reduces refresh frequency and general CPU activity on your Kindle, which is essentially its 'brain.'

To turn off page animations, tap the top of your screen > tap Aa > select the More tab > scroll down to Page Turn Animation, and toggle it off.

Clean out your (local) library

Keeping your downloaded book list concise saves battery

Every single e-book you download contains metadata (title, author, genre, etc.) to help your device catalog it. Whenever your Kindle connects to the internet, it syncs metadata and cover images, stealing a drop of power each time. Add that up over hundreds of downloaded books, and you can see where your battery life might be disappearing.

To keep those drops in your battery, archive any books you've already finished and only keep current reads in your local, downloaded library. Turning off Wi-Fi also helps here, but keeping your local library small is another easy tactic.

You can also switch your library view to List instead of Cover. List view is purely text, which is much cheaper energetically than cover art, which requires image caching, decoding, and even periodic refreshing.

Turn off Bluetooth

An idle power vampire

Just like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth creates a small but constant energy drain when it's on. Your Kindle remains in a low-level scanning state even when idle. You only need Bluetooth on when connecting to headphones or a speaker for audiobooks. Otherwise, turn it off.

To turn off Bluetooth, open a book > tap the top of your screen > tap the stop-light menu in the upper-right > select Settings > choose Wi-Fi and Bluetooth > Toggle Bluetooth off. You can also swipe down from the top of your screen for a quick access menu.

Tweak your Sleep timer

Let your Kindle rest

E Ink tablets are sneaky when it comes to obvious power draws. The paper-like display doesn't look quite "on" as much as your phone or regular tablet, so it almost feels like it isn't using much power at all. The truth is that it is eating up energy, and the longer that screen stays 'on,' the more it consumes.

You don't want your Kindle sitting on and idle for too long if you walk away from it. To save battery, adjust the Sleep Timer -- the amount of time your Kindle waits before turning the display off. It's set to 10 minutes by default, but five minutes is the most battery-friendly option.

To change your sleep timer, tap the top of your screen > select the stop-light menu on the right > tap Settings > select Device options > choose Sleep timer > select five or 10 minutes to preserve your battery life the most.

Disable Popular Highlights

Especially if you want fewer distractions

Another sneaky syncer, Popular Highlights is a feature on your Kindle that, when enabled, displays passages that are the most frequently highlighted by other Kindle users. To determine which passages are the most 'popular,' your device has to communicate with Amazon to sync up.

I always have this off because if I see a highlighted portion of text at the bottom of the page, my eyes jump immediately to it and ruin whatever detail it is people are so excited about. Disabling Popular Highlights kills two birds with one stone: prevent spoilers and save power.

You can disable Popular Highlights by tapping Aa > select the More tab > scroll down to Popular Highlights, and toggle it off.

Don't obsess over your Kindle's battery

It's already one of the longest-lasting devices on the market

The Kindle Paperwhite (2024) has one of the most impressive battery lives of any device I've ever owned. From one charge alone, you can get up to 12 weeks of battery life, which is more than any casual reader might ever need. Plus, with USB-C cables quickly replacing almost every other kind of charger, it's likely wherever your Kindle does choose to die, someone will have the means to revive it -- even if you forgot yours at home.